Sunday, April 17, 2005

BULK FOLDER

Don’t get me wrong. There is, I am sure, a place for what I am about to share with you and I believe that place to reside somewhere between a rat infested abandoned trailer and a porn set in Woodland Hills or maybe a Reality teeVEE show development office, but what I do wish to state unequivocally is that I am not a forty-something woman who downloads The Porn. Nor have I followed anything that has anything to do with Paris Hilton, other than once, unintentionally. That one time prompted me to scream a huge EEEEEWWWWWWW after flipping through a magazine only to happen upon a Guess Ad featuring her sitting there, chicken legs spread wide apart with her Chihuahua placed in front of her crotch like a merkin... Where is the SPCA when this stuff is going on?...Okay, I’m getting off topic...Where was I...oh yeah. I do not intend to collect Pope memorabilia, nor do I intend to become a middle-aged wife type person looking to score hot young men to have group sex with and then video it for internet publication later; I do not intend to WATCH middle-aged wife type persons having group sex. I don’t take drugs stronger than aspirin, since there was a time and place for that and it was called The 80’s; I don’t need to enlarge my penis, since I don’t have one; I don’t need to enlarge my breasts, which I DO have; I know what it’s like to lose one’s virginity, having lost my own years ago, so I most assuredly do not need to watch someone else lose theirs.

I might however, wish to take advantage of a Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks giveaway.

I just wanted to preface that. That and to state that the word of the day is Merkin. A pubic wig for women. Merkin. Try to find a reason to use it in a sentence. I swear it will make you giggle.

Okay...the aforementioned out of the way, I wish to share with you the contents of my Bulk Mail Folder that arrived between the hours of 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m. this morning. On a gorgeous Sunday morning while the sun was shining and the birds were chirping. I had just returned from a lovely hike where I communed with Nature, ran a little, hiked a little, picked up after my dogs a little – okay a lot...and feeling mighty refreshed and spiritual after all that Nature, I came home, ate a little breakfast, went to check e mail and:

· Should Paris Hilton be punished? Answer now and get a complimentary pink cell phone!
· Mature MILF action! Check it out! The hottest here!
· Yours to Keep – New Kmart Gift Card Valued at $1000!
· Watch first timers get banged and enjoy it!
· Dunkin donuts or Starbucks Coffee Gift Card Giveaway!
· Get a complimentary Sony VAIO Notebook!
· Larger Breasts Now!!!!!
· Cut Federal Student loan paybacks in Half!
· Cardiologist slashes cholesterol in clinical trial!
· Mature women bare all!
· Penis enlargement pills here!
· Now her love life might be better than yours!
· Cell phone product testers needed!
· Bonnie’s first time giving a B.J.!
· Hot blonde, teenage lesbians on video here!
· Pope John Paul II Commemorative!
· Vioxx – 50 pills for $60!
· Videos of hotties giving their first @#$!
· Aged to perfection, mature women bare all!
· Yolanda’s first time in bed and! @#$@$#@$ it!
· Herbal Breast Enlargement!
· Get a Free T-Mobile Sidekick Cell Phone!
· For $1000 cash, Is Michael Jackson Guilty?
· Get up to $500 by tomorrow!
· Fastest UP in 20 minutes!
· Tomorrows Stocks on the run!
· Trade Alert !
· Narcotics such as Pitocin may interfere with other drugs…
· (and yet another) Pope John Paul II commemorative!

Hmmmmm. After reviewing the list again, I think that perhaps Paris Hilton SHOULD be punished for sexually exploiting her Chihuahua.

Sunday, April 10, 2005

The American Diet Debacle

I know, I know, it’s been ages. I’ve had term papers to write, exams to take, a job to show up for, hot flashes to endure, dogs to walk, a murder to plan, someone else to frame for it, meals to prepare, a cute new haircut to access my inner Sharon Stone, a thesis to explore on The Age of Viagra v the Age of Romance about how the Age of Viagra has ruined art and poetry, in that so much classic art and poetry dealt with the desire for great passion and the humiliation of that great passion being... cut short...if you will…(okay I made that up – no one would approve that as a thesis, especially those taking Viagra)...frankly, I’m swamped...(okay let’s see how many of you get the hidden film reference)...

Speaking of meal preparation and the American culture of obsession with bizarre dieting - or bingeing and purging as a favorable alternative to healthy eating and exercise, my cousin Lillian decided one summer; the summer between junior and senior year in high school; to eat nothing but chicken. No other meats, fish, no vegetables, no fruit, pasta, potatoes, pizza, salad, dessert, chocolate, dinner rolls, bagels, cheese, cheese wiz, romaine lettuce, Velveeta processed cheese food, red cole slaw, nothing but chicken. Initially she lost some weight, which could be considered a good thing. She had always been what we liked to call a “big healthy girl,” but then after a few weeks of the chicken diet, she started to smell a little funny. Her skin took on this pasty kind of look. She started developing a white chalky substance in the creases of her arms and behind her knees and ears that was rather disturbing and disgusting. She began having really bizarre mood swings which we could only attribute to being a bi-product of her limited diet. We figured out that over the three-month summer vacation prior to senior year she consumed approximately 10,000 chickens. I know that seems like quite a lot, and an impossibility in only a three-month period of time, but I assure you that it is quite possible, in that much of the chicken she purchased came from fast food establishments, well known for fusing and compressing large quantities of chicken into miniscule bite size nuggets. I’ve never been able to truly enjoy a chicken dish without gagging since that summer.

Okay, I made all that up. I have no cousin named Lillian. My family is wacky but we have our limits. I do actually know a woman who decided to eat nothing but corn or corn based foods for an extended period of time. I remember wishing her luck with it, and expressing the notion that perhaps it would be a good time to place some classic literature in her bathroom, since she might be spending more time in there. Americans can be pretty madcap and zany about their weight loss ideas. The weight loss industry and the next big thing diet has become quite arguably the multi-billion dollar industry contributing to our gross national product that best exemplifies the American Dream. Where else can the snake oil salesman, in this instance, one with a degree at the end of his/her name, write one book that sells billions of copies to billions of people - the best seller status launching an entire merchandising industry to that person’s book, a la internet diet plans based upon the book, high end spas using that best selling diet as a meal plan used by their establishment...an author who achieves the kind of guru status and adoration that only a religious leader would have in any other country...yet most of the time the book is a re-wording of the virtues of the food pyramid and the value of physical exercise, or something so unhealthy that extended use prompts the need for removal of an internal organ. Whichever it is, the book gets enthusiasm from the buyer for a couple weeks, only to return to the shelf with the other diet books - and the person that bought the book goes back to potato chips and re-runs of Law and Order while the rest of the world wonders why we're so weird.

In the 80’s I think we were naturally thin from all the readily available cocaine.